Forty of the country’s 194 rural municipalities have fewer than 1,000 people but all of them are required to have a post office, something that a daily says is costing the postal service 2.6 million euros a year.

Postimees said it is part of the universal postal service provider’s obligation to maintain the post offices.

Under regulations by the Minstry of Economics, all municipalities are required to have a post office, even amidst dwindling population in some locations, and rising utility costs. Since October 2013, there are total of 215 municipalities in Estonia, 30 urban and 185 rural.

The postal service has been downsizing post offices and in the past five or six years, merging some of them with other service providers, such as libraries and village stores. The number of post offices has dropped from 500 to a little more than 300 during that period.